


We Blaze

by jessalae



Category: Road to El Dorado (2000)
Genre: Angst and Humor, Backstory, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-07
Updated: 2013-01-07
Packaged: 2017-11-24 01:11:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/628612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessalae/pseuds/jessalae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“So, which way from here?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Blaze

**Author's Note:**

  * For [helle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/helle/gifts).



> Happy fandom_stocking, helle, and thanks for requesting one of my favorite small fandoms! I think there's a hint of OT3 in here if you squint -- I ship it, but this fic was determined to stay gen.

Between the crawling pace, the scraped knees, and the endless whining, traveling with Miguel and Tulio was a little bit like traveling with a couple of children — except even the toddlers in El Dorado knew their way around the jungle better than those two did. Chel had been six years old the first time she dove off the top of Weeping Woman falls into the lake below. Her friend Ixtab had dared her, probably assuming Chel would chicken out. The look on Ixtab’s face when six-year-old Chel stripped off her dress and threw herself gracefully over the falls had had Chel laughing all the way down to the churning water below.

Now, the looks on Miguel and Tulio’s faces had her laughing as she broke through the surface, tossing her wet hair out of her eyes. “What? It’s fun.”

“Noooo thank you,” Tulio said, backing away from the water.

Miguel looked up to the top of the falls, then down to where Chel was treading water. His eye twitched.

Chel rolled her eyes and started swimming towards the bank. “I didn’t say _you_ had to do it,” she said. “Couple of babies.” She clambered up onto the rock where she’d left her clothes and wrung her hair out over the lake. 

Miguel turned his back, his face going red. “So, which way from here?” he asked the trees.

“I think if we go over that log, there, and then hang a left, we’ll be back on the path we took to get here,” Tulio says, glancing over his shoulder barely long enough to point towards the northwest.

“ _That’s_ the way you came?” Chel laughed as she pulled on her top. “Uh-uh. The ocean’s thataway.” She pointed southwest.

Tulio opened his mouth to argue, and she gave him a look.

“Right,” Miguel said brightly. “The sooner we get to the ocean, the sooner we get away from Cortez.” He swung up onto Altivo’s back and rode off straight into the jungle, heading due east.

Chel sighed.

***

“How did you know this was here, again?”

“This city has the best summer marketplace in the whole valley,” Chel explained for the hundredth time. “I went a few times when I was little. When it gets closer to the solstice, this place’ll be packed.”

Tulio nearly tripped over a huddle of children playing with a rubber ball, then had to hop to the left to avoid being run over by an old woman with a cart full of pottery. “This isn’t packed?”

“No no no.” Chel stopped to glance at a silver bracelet studded with turquoise, waving the vendor away when he tried to sell her a set of earrings to match. “This is practically empty.”

“Look!” Miguel, who had been haggling with a vendor ten paces behind them, jogged up to them and showed them his purchase: a carved wooden bird painted in bright colors. Chel barely had time to nod in approval before he left it in her hands and darted off to the next stall.

Tulio frowned, looking out over the crowd. “Just how many cities are there around here?”

Chel shrugged. “I dunno, a bunch? I’ve only seen a few of them.”

Miguel appeared by Tulio’s side, handed a piece of fried maize cake to each of them, and disappeared again. Tulio popped his right into his mouth, then fanned frantically at his face as if that would stop the cake from burning his tongue. Chel laughed. 

“If you’re so big on adventure,” Tulio said when he had managed to swallow, “Why haven’t you done more exploring in your own jungle?”

Chel took a bite of her maize cake, chewing slowly to buy herself time. Orphan girls taken in by the temple didn’t have a lot of freedom, as a rule. Orphan girls taken in by a temple run by Tzekel-Kan had even less freedom. “Things were pretty busy around the temple,” she said casually. “There was always some prophecy or other to deal with, I never had time to go anywhere.”

Miguel caught up to them again, wearing a blue headband with red feathers woven into it and grinning like an excited child.

“Miguel, how are you paying for all this stuff?” Tulio asked.

“Bartering,” Miguel said. “Nobody’s insisted on being paid in coins. The man I bought the cakes from drove a hard bargain, though, and I said I’d give him your vest.”

“My— you _what_?” Tulio looked back over his shoulder and blanched: an impatient-looking man was standing directly behind him, arms crossed, a heavy stone pestle in one hand. Tulio grinned shakily and surrendered his vest, and the man nodded once and walked back to his stall.

“No more shopping!” Tulio hissed at Miguel, yanking him away from a blanket covered in an array of stone knives.

“I just wanted to try—“

“No! And I’m making a new rule: no using other people’s clothing as currency!”

“Fine,” Miguel grumbled, looking so sulky Chel couldn’t help laughing.

“Come on, Miguel,” she said. “I’ll buy you some chocolate.” She grabbed his wrist and ran off ahead with him in tow. Tulio caught up to them eventually, and the grumpy look on his face disappeared when he tasted the cup of chocolate they had bought with Chel’s anklet.

***

They had been camped in the same musty cave for three days, three full-grown adults and a very large horse, and the rain hadn’t let up for more than half an hour the whole time. Chel’s legs were cramped, her skirt was muddy, and her hair was all over the place. Spirits were not running high.

“At this rate, we’ll be able to fish right out the opening of the cave for our supper,” Miguel said, doing his best to sound cheerful.

“Yeah, and how are we going to cook it?” Tulio asked. “All our firewood is soaking wet.”

“We could smoke it.“

“And choke to death from doing it in the cave? Great idea.”

“Well, you come up with something, then, I’m getting tired of having these same berries for every single meal.”

Chel sighed and let her head thunk back against the rock wall. Altivo snorted in sympathy.

“The rain can’t last much longer. It’s been three days.” Tulio turned to look at Chel. “It can’t, can it?”

“I don’t know,” Chel snapped. “Depends on what the gods want.” Fed up, she shoved herself to her feet and walked out into the rain.

Fat drops thudded down on her head. The water was cool against her skin, soaking her hair and clothes in a matter of seconds and washing off the stale feeling she got from being in the cave. She leaned back against a tree and sighed, closing her eyes. No birds were singing, because of the rain, but the sound of water pooling in the broad leaves and dripping down was familiar, home-like.

“I thought you didn’t believe in gods,” Tulio’s voice said right next to her ear.

She opened one eye. “I didn’t believe _you two_ were gods,” she said. “Big difference.”

Tulio blinked. “But you do think there are actual gods, that control the weather and all.”

“I don’t know.” Her parents had believed in the gods. It hadn’t helped them much, hadn’t stopped the edge of the canal from crumbling away under their feet or the river from sweeping them away. “Does it matter?”

“Not really,” Tulio said, shrugging. “Unless there’s something we can do to convince them to stop the rain.”

Chel looked at him and smirked. “I heard the rain gods like it when skinny men dance naked for them.”

“Perfect,” Tulio said. “Miguel! Naked dancing will solve our weather problem.”

Miguel ducked out of the cave, looking confused. “Who’s dancing naked?”

“Tulio is,” Chel said quickly. She grabbed the hem of his shirt. “Come on, let’s get this rain cleared up so we can find food.”

“Hey!” Tulio let her tug his shirt over his head, then grabbed her around the waist and swung her around. “I don’t dance alone.”

“I can’t take my clothes off, it’ll embarrass poor Miguel.”

“Well, the rain gods will have to settle for clothed dancing, then.” Tulio picked her up and spun her in a circle, then passed her off to Miguel, who bowed deeply. She mirrored his bow, and tried to follow along as he launched into a complicated pattern of steps, snapping his fingers over his head. Tulio started belting out a song she didn’t recognize, and Miguel joined in, harmonizing on the chorus. Chel shrieked, delighted, when Miguel caught her around the waist and tipped her backwards just as the song reached a high note.

As if on cue, the clouds overhead drifted apart, letting a beam of sunlight shine down between the trees.

“You have pleased the gods,” Tulio intoned in a deep voice, and Miguel grinned and pulled Chel back upright.

“Of course we have,” he said. “My dancing is divine.”

Tulio draped his wet shirt over his shoulders and rubbed his hands together. “Who’s ready to look for some food?”

They checked on Altivo, ordering him to stay put, then set off into the forest. Rain still dripped from the leaves above, splashing unexpectedly onto their shoulders and faces, but up in the sky the sun shone bright and warm.


End file.
